Where to Start with Investing Online

WHERE TO START:
When considering our financial future it is nice to know that there are several options and ways to invest. The downside to this is trying to wade through the multiple options to find the right path for your current needs. Investing is never a stagnate path, it is always changing as our needs and circumstances change.
If we carve up our financial and personal needs in to four main categories it is often easier for us to see what path we should travel down. The four categories will be Liquidity needs, Goals and Objectives, Time Horizon and our Risk Profile.

LIQUIDITY NEED: This is the amount you need on hand for emergencies and other short term goals. The money that we don't want tied up in long term investments.

GOALS & OBJECTIVES: What are we trying to accomplish with these investments? Do we have a specific goal in mind, such as a house, or retirement?

TIME HORIZON: How long do we want to wait to see our returns?

RISK PROFILE: What kind of risk are we able to tolerate? What can we put out there and still sleep at night and not burn ulcers through our spine?
These four areas are the essentials to finding the types of investments we want to use from the long list of available markets and paths out there today. Answering those four areas makes the path fairly obvious.

BEGIN AT THE END:
Every great mystery writer knows the best way to write a good story is to start at the end and work your way backwards. Solving the mystery of good investment plans is very similar. Start with your retirement plans and work back to your day to day needs. Your current liquidity is of course the primary need. If the car needs new brakes, or the front window gets smashed, or the wash machine is chewing instead of cleaning, these problems have to be solved, and money expended, otherwise we are going to have a difficult time maintaining jobs and relations. After we have a comfort zone figured out for your primary liquidity needs however, retirement plans are the best place to jump to, for several reasons.